“The knight raises both eyebrows, like someone by Burne-Jones who's just trodden on something sharp. 'I am Prince Boamund, eldest son of King -'
'Boamund?'
'That's right,' says the knight, 'Boamund, eldest son of -'
'How do you spell that?'
Boamund looks worried. Where he comes from you can take advanced falconry, or you can take spelling; not both. Guess which one he opted for.”

“That's it?' Boamund said.
'Basically, yes,' the hermit replied. 'I've left out Helmut von Moltke and the Peace of Nikolsburg, and maybe I skated over the Benelux customs union a bit, but I think you've got the essentials there. Anything you're not sure about, you can look up in the book.”

“He respects owl, because you can't help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn't spell it right.”

“You don't spell it, son. You eat it.”

“And he respects Owl, because you can't help respecting anyone who can spell Tuesday, even if he doesn't spell it right; but spelling isn't everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn't count.”

“I am not interested so much in behaviour from which you infer consciousness because that is a mug's game. I don't know whether you're conscious. I take a good guess that you are and you can take a good guess that I am but it's not something you can prove. We can't work out what someone else feels.”

“On the king’s gate the moss grew gray;
The king came not. They called him dead
And made his eldest son one day
Slave in his father’s stead.”

“There are such beings in the world — perhaps one in a thousand — as the creature you and I should think perfection; where grace and spirit are united to worth, where the manners are equal to the heart and understanding; but such a person may not come in your way, or, if he does, he may not be the eldest son of a man of fortune, the near relation of your particular friend, and belonging to your own county.”

“Prince, Bayard would have smashed his sword
To see the sort of knights you dub--
Is that the last of them — O Lord
Will someone take me to a pub?”

“I can see why you opted out of Knight training,” I countered. “They’d have ‘accidentally’ killed you before you made it to adulthood.”